Just compare heart, beard and heard,Dies and diet, lord and word,Sword and sward, retain and Britain(Mind the latter, how it’s written).Say said, pay paid, laid but plaid.Made has not the sound of bade,Now I surely will not plague youWith such words as vague and ague.But be careful how you speak:Say break and steak, but bleak and streak.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,Neither does devour with clangour.Soul but foul and gaunt but aunt,Font, front, won’t, want, grand and grant.Shoes, goes, does. Now ﬁrst say ﬁnger,Then say singer, ginger, linger.Real and zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,Marriage, foliage, mirage and age.Query does not rhyme with very,Nor does fury sound like bury.Dost, lost, post, doth, cloth and loth,Job, job, blossom, bosom, oath.Though the diﬀerence seems little,We say actual but victual.

Seat and sweat, chaste, past and caste.Leigh and eight and freight and height,Put but nut, granite and unite.Reefer does not rhyme with deafer,Feoﬀer does, and zephyr, heifer.Dull, bull, Geoﬀrey, George ate late,Hint, pint, Senate but sedate.Scenic, phrenic, and Paciﬁc,Science, conscience, scientiﬁc.Tour but our, and succour, four,Core provides a rhyme for door.

Never guess, it is not safe,We say calves, valves, half but Ralph.Hero, heron, granary, canary,Crevice and device and eyrie.Face but preface and eﬀace,Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.Large, but target, gin, give, verging,Ought, out, joust and scour but scourging.Ear but earn, and wear and tear,Do not rhyme with here but there.Seven is right but so is even,Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen.Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,Asp, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation – think of psyche! –Is appaling, stout and spikey.Won’t it make you lose your wits,Writing ‘groats’ and saying ‘grits’?It’s a dark abyss or tunnel,Strewn with stones, like rowlock, gunwale.Islington and Isle of Wight,Housewife, verdict and indict.Aren’t you mixed up, reader, rather,Saying lather, bather, father?Finally: what rhymes with ‘tough’?Though, through, plough, cough, hough? Enough!Hiccough has the sound of ‘cup’,My advice is: “Give it up!”